Hehe!

Haha! I got this in an email today...I just can't stop laughing!!!!!!!!!

I used to LIKE seeing the sunrise....

The title of the post says it all...I've learned how to make coffee and sandwiches in my sleep! With this new job of his, Jim needs to get up at 0415! That's AM for you non-military folks! LOL I don't know how Gina has done it all these years for Bill. Maybe she's like me and goes back to sleep till a decent hour, like when the sun is up. :)

I realized the other morning how lucky I actually am, to be waking up this early and making coffee and a lunch for my husband. In class the day before, my friend Amanda made the comment, "Well...at least you HAVE a husband!" She's been dating this guy for 6 years and waiting and waiting (sometimes more patiently than others) for him to propose. After my wedding, she really lit a fire under his butt about it and now they're separated. Still "seeing eachother" if you can understand it? Anyways, the comment really made me realize how lucky I am!

My semester is going to be pretty busy, but Wednesdays are my favorite day! I have PT at 0600 and class at 8, but then I'm done by noon! I get to spend the rest of the day in Lockport and come to church. It lets me recharge my batteries and prepare for the rest of the week. Also, I don't have to cook anything! Jim's Aunt Jody or my mom cooks us dinner on Wednesdays, and it's always sooooo good. Thank you God for Wednesdays!

So now I'm off to school, I can't study at home. I ALWAYS fall asleep reading! Maybe that's a sign that I keep a peaceful home? :)

Nothing much

Almost one week down....14 more to go till graduation! Only 14 more weeks of school for the REST OF MY LIFE! Well, I hope. This semester is going to fly by. I'm going to blink and open my eyes with a diploma. Today was boring. I only had clinicals for an hour today for orientation. It took an hour to get there on the bus....for that! On the way back someone spilled some pop on my WHITE uniform pants. oooooh! That was God telling me to do my laundry that is piling up at home! So now i'm doing the laundry. That's all for today.

I did get some funny cartoons in my email though...

Pictures!

I did NOT know I could put pictures on here! Yey! I'll put up some of my favorites.

Some days I feel like eating cake too!

This is Grace, one of our flower girls.

Grace and Alec...

This is one of my favorites!

Sofia (Grace's older sister) and me

Most dogs don't like my dad....I wonder why.

Aren't they the cutest?!!!

We have such a great marriage.....haha
OR is this couples' therapy?

Spring Review for ROTC

Playin in the leaves

Paging Gretchen......come back to reality!

Well, today was my first clinical. It was spent in front of a computer learning how to use their charting system. Five hours staring at a computer. Then I got lost in the parking garage looking for my car. Picture me wandering around with my car lock/unlocker pressing the button to make it beep....... guess I shoulda remembered where I parked. Yup, real hard morning!

I still need to go get school supplies for this semester...instead of getting them yesterday, I got a little sidetracked in the kitchen. I only planned on making the chicken pot-pie for dinner (thank you Miss Julie!). While looking thru my recipes, I found one for cranberry-orange coffeecake, so I made that. Then I noticed the bananas needed to get used up and whipped up some banana bread! Finally, I got around to making the pot pie....which was done just in time for James to scarf it down.

There's the banana bread...mmm (after breakfast)

And there's the cranberry orange bread.

Snow!

I am sooooo excited about the snow! There's this great sledding hill by McCormick place that I want to go to....


School starts again tomorrow. ICK! I'm getting all my books/binders together today, maybe baking later. Here's my class schedule so far:

Monday:
12:45-2:25 Advanced Med/Surg
7pm-9:30 Healthcare Ethics

Tuesday:
6:45-2:00 Advanced Med/Surg Clinicals
@Swedish Covenant

Wednesday:
5:45-7:00AM NROTC PT
8:15-11:15 Nursing Ethics

Thursday:
2:00-7:00 Advanced Med/Surg Clinicals
@Rehab Institute of Chicago

Friday:
12:45-2:25 Advanced Med/Surg


Might I say this semester is going to be alot better than the last! Last semester, I took 21 credit hours. This semester I only have 11 for the first half, or first rotation. After the first half, it goes down to 3, but I have my CRT (clinical role transition) where I work with a nurse full-time. Whenever she works, I work. (UNLESS it's a SUNDAY!) I have to get 168 hours with this nurse.....so I think I'll be a little busier come the latter part of the semester! But nothing compared to last semester!!!!!!

Thank GOD I'm almost done! Pray that I get all A's this semester, I want to graduate magna cum laude (GPA>3.70) I'm already there, but I need to stay there.


I'll write more later, I need to get this day started

Waffles and Cheesecake

Well today was filling, physically and mentally! James and I spent the night at my parents house, and got to sleep in. Anything past 7am is "sleeping in" for us...it was so great! Then I made some waffles in the waffle iron given to me by my grandma when I was young. It is chrome and cast iron....and electric. It even has a CLOTH cord cover, so you know it's old! So I made waffles, and then we remembered that there was leftover cheesecake in the fridge...mmm! You can probably guess what I ate next.

The cheesecake was from last night. My family celebrated my sister's graduation and 2 birthdays; my sister's and my dad's. We all went to Louie's Chophouse and enjoyed a De-Licious meal. (an expensive one!) I was the only one to FINISH all my steak and food. I think there's a bible verse somewhere about gluttony...maybe I should reread that one! I was so full.

Today was the graduation ceremony. It was neat because it was the first mid-year graduation ceremony ever. It was a small one, only 100 graduates. My graduating class had over 700, so it seemed very small to me! The Air Force junior ROTC kids did the colors, but after seeing it in the REAL military......I noticed the little things.....the way they don't march in step, the barely audible order to post the colors, the slack posture of those standing at "attention".... Sometimes I wish I could just NOT notice these things! But having gotten yelled at many times in my orientation to the military known as ROTC for sloppy salutes/marching/posture/etc, I guess it's made me more nit-picky myself!

The ceremony was wonderful though, I really enjoyed seeing my sister walk the stage and get her diploma. We never really got along when we were younger, but now we see more eye-to-eye and it's awesome. She actually LIKES me! yey! Even after I tried to cage, tie up, and make traps for her when we were younger! :)

I can't believe I graduated 4 years ago. It seems like yesterday that I was a senior in high school, and now I'm a senior at Loyola. Crazy. Seems like I just met James in history class, now I'm MARRIED to him! In May I graduate and I still don't know where i'm going. Should I be excited? I'm kinda just scared. I'm really glad to be done, don't get me wrong, but afraid to be away from family and home. At least I'll have company.


Well, time to go watch a movie. Hopefully this mess all makes sense!

The Beginning

Well, I'm going to try to keep this thing up to date....